“[Obama] is a man with an impossible task on his hands," Gibson told Pop Tarts at the Hollywood premiere of his latest drama thriller "Edge of Darkness" on Tuesday night. "He got left a mess and I wish him all the best but I don’t think he’s going to fix it in five minutes and probably not in his entire tenure."

Gibson's thoughts come as no surprise, as his new film explores the dark side of politics. He stars as homicide detective Thomas Craven, who is embroiled in an investigation into the murder of his activist daughter. In the process, Craven uncovers a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent tasked with cleaning up the evidence.

"It picks the scab off the governmental, corporate paranoia - the under the table workings that happen," Gibson explained. "I think we've lost our naiveté, I don’t think we have any pretension that what most of our leaders are doing is leading us to the slaughterhouse."

And with all the headline news Gibson has made over the past few years with various trials and tribulations in his personal life, it is hard to believe it has been seven years since he actually took on a major film role, the last being "Signs" in 2002.

"I just wanted to come back and that was just the best piece of material that crossed my hands" he said.

And although the controversial actor has a reputation in the industry for being an on-set prankster, he got a taste of his own medicine this time around while working with fellow Australian, Bojana Novakovic, who played his daughter.

"I pranked him, I pretended that I was a seamstress on the first day and I went up to him as the seamstress until he realized who I was," Novakovic said. “He was still very nice to me [as] the seamstress, but I wanted him to play a prank on me after that but he never did. I think it might be coming. He said 'watch your back' and it comes when you least expect it so I was watching my back the entire shoot.”

Hollie McKay has been a FoxNews.com staff reporter since 2007. She has reported extensively from the Middle East on the rise and fall of terrorist groups such as ISIS in Iraq. Follow her on twitter at @holliesmckay